2020 DP World Tour Championship: Top 10 power rankings at the Earth course

Collin Morikawa is playing in the Middle East for the first time in his young career. Despite making his Dubai debut, there’s no doubting he’s still one of the top favorites this week.

That’ll happen when you win a major championship in your second year as a pro. The 23-year-old American star got it done in impressive fashion at the 2020 PGA Championship.

Morikawa’s already won three events in his year and a half as a pro.

He’s never played in a true European Tour event before, but like his countryman Patrick Reed, he climbed the Race to Dubai standings by his fine play in majors and WGCs. Morikawa was T-20th at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational.

The Californian is teeing it up for the first time since he took T-44th at the Masters. Morikawa’s top recent result is T-12th at the CJ Cup. He won this summer at the Workday Charity Open and was second at the Charles Schwab Challenge.

Morikawa ranked second on the PGA Tour last season in strokes gained approach (.884). When he’s on with his iron game, there’s hardly any better. That should bode well to locate the right portions of the Earth course’s undulating greens.

Morikawa was also 19th in SG off the tee (.44) thanks to good accuracy with the driver. There isn’t a ton of trouble on site this week but desert courses have a way of punishing some bad drives.

The former Cal Golden Bear doesn’t have a ton of experience overseas, though he did place T-5th at the 2019 Dunlop Phoenix in Japan.